2. Keys to Org Sustainability
• How do you transform your organization from top to bottom so that
your vision of sustainability drives everyday decision-making and
defines short and long-term success?
• Vision and Leadership are key.
• Vision: exemplary orgs are exceptionally clear about their purpose
• Leadership: Effective leaders set the tone, defining their orgs with
clarity of their vision, conviction and commitment.
• Vision provides the goal; principles frame the path
3. 3 Key Principles for Successful
Sustainability Org
• 1. Sufficient tension between a desired state and current
conditions—constant striving for improvement
• No tension, no change basic systems thinking
• 2. people involved in org must have “self-efficacy” must believe
they can successfully implement the changes to close the tension
gap
• Constant learning is the core element
• 3. People must believe that the benefits of the new approach
outweigh the downsides by at least 2 to 1.
• Participants must see two upsides for every downside to the shift
4. Focus on Cities
• 75% of world’s emissions are from cities
• More power at municipal level
• Can see across differences easier
• Fewer political barriers
• Enhances local
• Need networked regional approach to be sustainable
• Cities and Organizations are the key to transformation
5. 7 Key Levers for Change to Sustainability
1. Alter the thinking, assumptions, beliefs on org functioning
2. Alter the planning and decision-making (by getting people
with different attributes and views involved)
3. Reorient the vision, goals and guiding principles of org
4. Restructure the strategies to achieve goals/mission
5. Shift the flow of info to service new sustainability-based
vision, goals, and strategies
6. Improve the org’s capacity to learn
7. Embed new vision, goals and strategies in standard op
procedure
8. Organizing a transition team:
• Get the right people to work on a team (most
important step)
• Gain clarity on goals & ask the following questions:
• Why do we exist?
• What are we striving to achieve?
• How will we achieve our vision?
• Which actions will we take?
• When & where will these actions take place?
• From what will we learn?
• Where will we make the new approach stick?
10. Clarity over rules
• Types of decisions:
• I: Decide & inform
• II: Consult & decide
• III: Decide by consensus
• IV: Delegate decision
• Decide who plays what role in decision-making so team
members don’t misinterpret their level of influence
• Take stakeholders into account & keep them in the loop
11. Good Leadership = The Key to
Success
• Hats the leader wears:
• Driver- keep team motivated & focused
• Connector- ID gaps between issues
• Translator- make sure everyone understands principles of
sustainability
• Choreographer- stay ahead of the team in order to predict what
needs to be done in the future
13. Chapter 8: Change the goals of the system to ideal
visions of sustainability
• If we change the goal, we reorient the purpose
o Clearly define "new ends" the organization seeks to achieve
o Create guidelines for how decisions should be made to achieve them
• Clear visions provides the goals/Principles Frame the Path
o Influence the way it operates and is governed
o Employees feels secure that everyone is on the same page
• Good visions
o Explain purpose behind achieving sustainability
o Be relatable to different interests groups
14. Clarity of Purpose/Reoriented Vision
• Clarity of Purpose
o Previous aspirations vs. new desires
o Abolish old perspective while forming new ones.
o Establish principles for vision.
• How to Reorient Purpose:
o Strong leaders with vision
o Transition Teams
o Decision-making process based on principles
15. Think backwards to develop visions
• Backwards Thinking/ Ends Planning :
o How do you want your organization to look and
operate if it were completely sustainable
o then look backwards to the current conditions, and
identify the most direct route toward the ideal.
o Eliminates false paths and helps avoid getting
trapped by decision-making tools that favour the
status quo
o Patagonia, GM
17. Linking Incremental Change with Major
Innovation
• Small and slow improvements combined w/ changes at multiple
levels including people, management skills, systems, energy
sources, etc.
• Focused on: people (governance-change) and operations
(operational-change)
• Vision > Strategy > Tactics
o how team will accomplish work
o then, decide which actions
18. Framework for Strategy Development
• How sustainable are we now?
o Assess environmental and socioeconomic footprints
inputs/outputs just like any system
o Assess existing patterns of governance
• How sustainable do we want to be in future?
• Identify operational performance gaps
o Establish goals and measurable targets
• How do we get there?
o Eliminate source of problems
o Source-oriented solutions
o Actions to achieve patterns of governance
• How do we measure progress?
o feedback systems (operational/governance)
19. Develop Implementation Plans
• When, where, and why should actions take place?
• Work plans, timetables, assignments, etc.
Indicators of Success
• Closed-loop systems
• Information flows
• Decision-making processes
• New power + authority relationships
• New ways people relate to each other
21. Barriers to Effective Communication
- Technical issues
- Inconsistency
- Lack of interaction
- Secrecy or Fear
*Remember to clear any misunderstandings, and to practice
relentless and effective communication!!
22. Keys to Good Information
1. Understand your audience
2. Frame messages carefully
3. Keep it simple
4. Make it important & memorable
5. Employ catchy tags, slogans, logos
6. Be relentless
7. Be transparent
8. Be interactive, not didactive
9. Highlight sucesses
23. Keys to Good Information
10. Keep it fresh
11. Use symbols, heroes, stories
12. Be a straight shooter
13. Have fun
Altering info. flows:
-personal interaction preferred
- "leaders must lead"
- Department, unit and transition team meetings
24. Chapter 11
Correcting the feedback loops--
encouraging and rewarding
learning and innovation
Aiden Gilbert
Bennett Jones
25. • “To overcome obstacles, the organization's feedback and
learning mechanisms must be altered so that the skills,
knowledge, and understanding of employees and stakeholders
continually expand. As understanding grows, people will find
ways to overcome the barriers” (198).
• The recognition of innovation is key to changing the feedback
and learning mechanisms, and fostering further creation and
innovation
Thesis
26. • Improving sustainability data systems
• “What are we seeing to achieve and what do we need to know to
measure our progress toward sustainability?” (201).
• Data barriers
• Data Information Knowledge
• Financial barriers
• R&D
• Time
• Economies of scale
Possible Barriers to Innovation
27. • Policy barriers
• “Command-and-control paradigm= tries to mitigate negative
effects of the linear take-make-waste production model” (207).
• Staffing barriers
• Need for educated staff and managers
• Education is not sufficient by itself
So many barriers…
28. • Levels of learning:
• Individual
• Team
• Organizational
• Continual learning overcomes barriers
• Learning not for the acquisition of specific skills
Changing feedback loops
29. • Make it safe to try new things
• Be okay with failure
• Reward innovation with recognition
• The barriers are not unique to sustainability
Encourage Innovation
31. “Adjusting the parameters”
• Alignment resolves issues of integration and coordination that lead to siloing and
fragmentation
• “Alignment MEANS organizational systems, structures, policies and procedures now
embrace & jointly buttress continued progress toward sustainability… Learning & innovation
must be given sufficient time to flourish to allow successful operational methods and
governance patterns to be discovered. Once the right set of though processes and behavior
emerges, however, the process of aligning sustainability throughout the organization should
begin.” (p. 230)
• Must Alter the Prevailing Mental Model
• Authority/Power can NOT change values/norms = resistance, alienation, and reduced
morale
• Alignment Factors: Leadership, Vision, Goals, Tactics, Structures, Communications, Strategies, Info
& employee involvement mechanisms – each offering the same message of sustainability with
consistent, mutually reinforcing signals.
32. • Alignment
• GOAL: “help each unit understand what others are doing and what others need of them to
produce their deliverables” (p.244)
• “Consistent and mutually reinforcing signals must continually bombard employees and
stakeholders until they find it impossible to think or behave in unsustainable ways.”
• “Cannot be achieved unless org. is governed as system”
• Effective Co-ordination and integration
Structures
• Divisional
• Clusters a number of diverse functions beneath one roof based on product, service, market
segment or geography
• Functional
• Groups formed from specialization of functions
• Matrix
• Hybrid of functional and divisional approaches
• Network
• “semi-independent groups form to accomplish specific tasks and disband when the tasks are
accomplished. New groups then form to take on specific new challenges.”
33. • Internal Measurement System
• Measure all key objectives that create value for the organization on
its march toward sustainability.”
• Human Resources
• “people are the primary resources, not components to be
mechanically added or discarded as needed”
• Learning and growing enhance efficiency
• Reward systems that are aligned with organization’s sustainability
vision, goals and strategies.”
• Obstacles
• 1. no commitment/ clarity
• 2. no progress through the phases of sustainable change process
• 3. architecture that influences organizational performance sends
mixed directions
35. Employees
• 51% are not satisfied with their jobs
• Unhappy employees are not as productive
• Financial issues are #1, but beyond that:
• Immediate supervisor
• Clearly defined expectations
• Ability to cultivate natural abilities (fisher: be creative)
• Role
• Meaningfully engaged in decision-making
36. Governance to Change
• Empowerment is talked about more than implemented; most
organizations are still built on patriarchy (top-down and power
exercised through hierarchical management).
• Employees are more like assets
• Must provide key leadership and direction, give
authority/power, provide resources and demand
accountability; otherwise, frustration sets in
37. 5 Characteristics of Sustainable Governance
1. Follow a vision and set of principles focused on enviro and
human wellbeing
2. Continually produce and widely distribute info necessary for
continual learning and measuring progress toward vision
3. Engage all those affected by the activities of org
4. Skillfully distribute resources equitably
5. Provide people with freedom and authority to act within an
agreed-upon framework
39. 6 Common Denial Mechanisms
1. We don’t have to do that
2. We already do that
3. We tried it and it didn’t work
4. The successes are mostly anecdotal and we’ll wait for more
hard data
5. It is too….costly, time consuming, complicated, etc
6. It’s _____ fault, not ours
40. 4 Common Positive Signs
1. Unbinding Optimism and Curiosity
2. A future orientation
3. Consistency and Doggedness
4. Whole-Systems Perspective
41. Lessons from Book
• Enviro and socioeconomic problems are symptomatic of deficiencies
in governance and leadership poor mgmt which tends to lead
to failure overall
• Sustainability is determined as much by the way an organization
operates as by what it produces
• Wheel of Change (7 strategies for intervention) apply to all types of
orgs, and to creating social and political change
• The keys to long-term transformation toward sustainability are the
development of effective governance systems and leadership.
